Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz, a spoiled 38-year-old adult son of a wealthy Floridian who has never had to earn an honest dollar in his life, is reportedly a fan of part-time predatory teenage girls – something he emphatically denies – and is unquestionably a full-time scoundrel. Quelle’s surprise: there seems to be more nonsense in the representative of Florida’s first district than in all of the Everglades.
It’s hard to say what exactly made Gaetz’s dirt exposure so predictable to people outside the Beltway. It could have been the 16 speeding tickets and DUI, his aspiring daddy relationship with former President Donald Trump, that time he staged a photo of himself to mock COVID-19 wearing a gas mask, his friendship with far-right figures like Holocaust denier Charles Johnson, media appearances in which he looked confused, or the fact that he was known to haunt a popular college bar in Tallahassee while working as a state legislator.
Perhaps it was the time he regretted not being able to “hunt” antifa as the military hunt terrorists, or the time he publicly expressed his terror in 22-year-old Tiffany Trump, or the time he threatened a witness of the Congress the night before was due to testify and then tried to break into the hearing of a committee of which he was not a member, or the time he tried to break into another hearing related to the impeachment that took place at a SCIF. Or maybe it’s his overbearing, warlike air that reminds everyone of the most annoying guy they studied with in college, or the gigantic dark circles under their eyes that went up and down like a hangover on spring break.
But it was definitely something, as the people inside the Beltway exhibited a similar level of non-shock. The general response from his party’s compatriots seems to be: “of course”. In fact, according to reports, many in his party say they have seen Gaetz’s public relations problems reach a mile away; so Attorney General Bill Barr, who knew about the investigation, avoided appearing in photos and news hits with him, and it appears that some of his colleagues in Congress were doing the same thing to avoid the bad public relations that was inevitably coming. come over.
If that’s the case, then why the hell did none of Gaetz’s fellow congressmen do anything? Why didn’t any “party official” do that?
After the Times reported on Monday that the FBI was investigating a relationship Gaetz allegedly had with a 17-year-old girl, Gaetz denied any wrongdoing while insisting that the real victim here was Matt Gaetz and his family, whom Gaetz said was being extorted for $ 25 million. Gaetz’s damage control plan involved a disastrous appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show, which Carlson later called “the strangest interview” he had ever done.
As the past week progressed, more information surfaced, each bit more chilling than the last. It now appears that Gaetz was not the target of the original FBI investigation, but was caught in child sex trafficking involving a small, rogue Florida employee and Gaetz’s friend Joel Greenberg. Greenberg was indicted in 2020 for, among other things, sex trafficking a 17-year-old girl with whom Gaetz may also have had sex. Investigators are investigating whether the disgusting duo was arranging sexual encounters and proportional payments online recently, last year. Gaetz has been a member of the congress since 2017.
But wait, there’s more. A story that the Miami Herald published in 2017 resurfaced in which Gaetz would have created a “game” with other young Florida lawmakers, whose goal was to sleep with interns, married colleagues, advisers and lobbyists. (Actually, he didn’t really “create” that game, since he copied a fraternity game that Lifetime has been making films about since at least the mid-1990s, so we’re not going to give Gaetz much creative credit; even his behavior predatory is derived Reports also claim that Gaetz bragged about the women he had slept with, sometimes displaying nude photos of them to colleagues in the plenary.
“Matt Gaetz never paid for sex,” Gaetz’s office told the New York Times not long before Gaetz’s communications director resigned amid a scandal that has a lot to do with Gaetz, in one way or another, pay for sex.
If typing all of this made me feel like I needed to take a shower, then what the hell is wrong with fellow Gaetz congressmen who suspected or witnessed this behavior but did about shit to stop it? I’m serious. What’s wrong with people who knew this and yet were more concerned with their own advertising than with the safety of their co-workers, law enforcement and the country’s business?
Not that I have any faith that Republicans will do the right thing here and take tangible steps to get Gaetz out of the Washington swamp and back into the Florida swamp, where he belongs. The 2021 GOP is more adept at provoking attacks on Twitter and on it than exhibiting any degree of moral courage. Minority leader in the House, Kevin McCarthy, continuing to drive his uncontrolled caucus like an overworked nanny the children locked in the bathroom, did not strip Gaetz of his duties on the committee, despite the seriousness of the allegations and the advanced state of the investigation. Gaetz’s Republican colleagues were brave enough to talk off about how they always knew the guy was terrible, but they weren’t brave enough to take public responsibility and demand responsibility.
And what about all or any part of the record number of Republican women who took office last fall? Why are we not hearing from them? Certainly, at least one of the 30 Republican women who currently work on the same floor where Gaetz was reportedly exhibiting nudity without the consent of his subjects has thoughts about this. Every time a Democrat is accused of sexual misconduct, the press looks to women in the party for answers. Why don’t we ask Republican women what they think of all of this? It is not fair to expect only responses from women on issues related to sexual misconduct, but it is also not fair to pretend that their insight is not important.
Why are we not hearing from Rep. Nancy Mace, who in 2019 revealed on the floor of the South Carolina state house that she is a sexual assault survivor? And what about Congresswoman Michelle Fischbach, who co-sponsored a bill against sex trafficking when she served in the Minnesota legislature? How about Ashley Hinson, from Iowa, who, as a state legislator, wrote a bill designed to “ensure these predators were held accountable” in public schools and was so proud of this bill that she ran an ad about it when she ran for Congress? Why don’t we hear from Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, one of the most powerful Republican women in Washington, who in 2018 applauded the passing of a law that updated the standards of behavior that govern members of Congress and their officials with a statement that said, in part, “Members of Congress must do what they say and lead by example. There is no room for sexual harassment in any workplace, and there should be zero tolerance for that on Capitol Hill. ” And what about Texas Rep. Beth Van Duyne, who once shamelessly tweeted #MeToo in celebration of Bret Kavanaugh’s confirmation for SCOTUS? (Wait a minute; it looks like she may be part of the problem.)
Republican men and women stand up and say something about Gaetz, or remain silent and therefore complicit in perpetuating a work culture that actively keeps half the population out.
Because this is how all this small talk about Gaetz is so damning to insiders who say they knew, but did nothing: every time women share stories of feeling insecure or stuck at work, they are questioned. Women who complain about mischievous behavior by adult men hear that “not all men” are like that, that there are “good men”. I can’t even say how many times I reflexively qualified an observation about male misconduct, first pointing out that I know that not all men are bad. But anyone – male or female – who does not speak up when witnessing a colleague’s sexual misconduct is involved in ensuring that exceptions to the “not all men” rule are always isolated from the punishment of people who do not want to get involved. If you are a member of Congress from either party who witnessed Matt Gaetz displaying nudes on the floor of the Chamber, you are involved. If you knew he was walking around Washington with suspiciously young women, you are involved.
Journalists who are answering secret calls about this should be asking why so many people who knew did so little.